English Motherfucker. Do You speak it?

Oddly, I'm not going to go on a massive rant about English again. I just like that line from Pulp Fiction, it always makes me smile.

I have a feeling my blog is going to soon slide into the realms of Brawny's and Az's, that is a rant against the world and just about everything in it, punctuated by light moments of sarcasm and irony. So what's on the cards today? A LOT. So much that it won't all fit into one deck/hand/blog.

The two things bugging me today are University and University. "But that's one thing!" I hear you cry. Not so. My university course is run by 2 separated establishments, the RVC and CAW. Apparently they stand for Royal Veterinary College and College of Animal Welfare. We're going to change that to Rectal Violation Club and Collection of Absolute Wankers.
You may be seeing where I'm going. You might not. Here, have a torch, it might help you.

I've become tired with university. I've become tired with the whole studying and exams and pointless crap that we do. I love being on placement, I learn so much more than at uni and I get on with everyone really well at work. I don't give a shit that I don't get paid, I enjoy it and that's the point. The point is also for me to be competent in some things before I arrive at placement so 1) I don't look like an ass 2) it doesn't waste people's time and money.

For example, with urine samples a lot of the time you do microscopy. Pretty much involves getting some piss, spinning it in a centrifuge so the debris in it separates from the majority of the fluid, then taking that debris, plonking it on a slide, shoving it under a microscope and off you go looking for cells and crystals. All sounds fine and dandy and interesting. At uni, we get given real blood to work with for slides and stuff. But oh no, we don't get urine. We get Apple Juice, with bicarbonate of soda in. Great for learning the vague process, but utterly USELESS for actually learning what to look for on the slide and the different shapes of crystals and things. So on placement the first few times I'm there asking "So what's this" "Can you give me a hand with..." etc. If we got real stuff to work with at uni, that wouldn't have to happen, and wouldn't waste people and time on placement. Part of it is down to the fact my self confidence with such things isn't exactly great, but the other part is due to lack of useful resources on uni's part. They can build this fantasmical LIVE centre and yes, it is damn good with a lot of useful bits in it, but other stuff in it is... well, useless to a point.

Yeah, there's certain stuff you only learn on placement (like... radiography, for example, you can work the theory at uni but practically it's kinda hard to do what with ionising radiation and needing live animals to work on), but when your university campus also happens to be home to one of the largest animal hospitals in the UK, you're really left wondering HOW FUCKING HARD IS IT TO LET US HAVE THE LEFT OVER URINE SAMPLES. It's not like they'll be losing money.

So that's the RVC out the way. Now for CAW.

I got a nice letter from CAW last Monday. Telling me my portfolio had to be in 100% by last Wednesday. Helpful of them. I sent them an email "We've been having problems with the post, they were sent out weeks ago!". Yeah, postage problems? Surely common sense therefore says for useful and important things with deadlines.... FUCK THE SNAIL MAIL AND EMAIL ME INSTEAD. It will arrive in a matter of seconds, not weeks. The people at CAW aren't not massively supportive and generally completely up their own asses. The only person who has really been helpful is the IV that comes and visits me. The rest are rude, obnoxious, have a very much holier-than-though attitude. Maybe that's just my experience with them, but it really puts me off ever contacting them because it's usually just "Talk to your assessor" "I HAVE".

Another problem is the obvious lack of communication between CAW and RVC, half the time neither have any idea what the other is doing, CAW seem to have no clue when I am on placement and RVC seem to enjoy changing dates for exams and other shit as much as they change their underwear. Which I hope is daily.

It's just annoying, stressful, and frankly I can't even start to think about exams in December when I still need to shift portfolio out the way first. At least good times at placement keep me going, I wouldn't change that for the world.